Senior Yugoslav army officer Momcilo Perisic goes on trial
The most senior Yugoslav army officer to be charged with war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia went on trial yesterday in The Hague.
General Momcilo Perisic, the former Chief of General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, pleaded not guilty to thirteen charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including aiding and abetting the Bosnian Serb siege of Sarajevo, and the Bosnian Serb forces which massacred up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995.
Although General Perisic, 64, is less well known than Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, who is wanted for genocide and remains on the run, he was a key figure in the murky relationship between Yugoslavia proper and its armed forces and the Bosnian Serbs, whom Yugoslavia furnished with arms, funds, men and materiel. Without Yugoslavia’s covert support the Bosnian Serb Army would not have been able to carry out its widespread campaigns of ethnic cleansing and murder.
General Perisic’s trial at the UN War Crimes Tribunalis likely to reveal significant details of the connections between the regime of the former Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, and forces commanded by the former General Mladic, described in General Perisic’s indictment as his “subordinate”.
Read entire article at Times (UK)
General Momcilo Perisic, the former Chief of General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, pleaded not guilty to thirteen charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including aiding and abetting the Bosnian Serb siege of Sarajevo, and the Bosnian Serb forces which massacred up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995.
Although General Perisic, 64, is less well known than Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, who is wanted for genocide and remains on the run, he was a key figure in the murky relationship between Yugoslavia proper and its armed forces and the Bosnian Serbs, whom Yugoslavia furnished with arms, funds, men and materiel. Without Yugoslavia’s covert support the Bosnian Serb Army would not have been able to carry out its widespread campaigns of ethnic cleansing and murder.
General Perisic’s trial at the UN War Crimes Tribunalis likely to reveal significant details of the connections between the regime of the former Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, and forces commanded by the former General Mladic, described in General Perisic’s indictment as his “subordinate”.